Introduction

Motherboard shopping

In spite of what some may say or believe, all motherboards are not created equal. Some offer the highest quality components for improved reliability as well as system stability; others may skimp in this department to cut costs.

Another common example is system tweaking: some motherboards offer settings for tweaking everything imaginable; this is in direct contrast to other motherboards that offer next to nothing.

For the past few years Abit in particular has been catering their products for the tweaking community, and, as a result, has developed a long following from them. The list of hugely successful motherboards from Abit is too numerous to mention here, but one recent example Abit's BP6 motherboard. To this day, the BP6 is still the only dual PPGA motherboard on the market.

A little history

When Abit didn't release a product based on the 750 chipset, many were convinced it was due to Abit's close ties to Intel. After all, why would you want to offend the company that's supplying you with the chipsets that form the heart of your product?

Lets face it, risking your existing relationship with one of your biggest partners (Intel) on an entirely new platform (Athlon) from a company that has had its problems in the past usually isn't a wise strategy. With the supply problems AMD has had with previous processors it's easy to understand why Abit and numerous other manufacturers were hesitant to jump on the Slot A bandwagon.

Last year AMD proved its ability to supply its customers with processors, and the performance of Athlon is equally impressive. In contrast, Intel was forced to delay its 820 chipset, and suffered supply problems with their high-end "Coppermine" Pentium III at the end of the year. As a result, OEM's worldwide have embraced the Slot A platform, Dell is the only Tier One OEM remaining that solely receives its processor supply from Intel.

With so much momentum behind AMD, Abit felt compelled to release a product for this market. Rather than release a motherboard based on the 750 chipset, Abit chose to wait for VIA's KX133 chipset.

With full support for AGP 4X and 133MHz memory bus, (among several other new features) KX133's lifespan should, on paper, extend further into 2000 than 750. On top of the brand new chipset, Abit included their usual mix of features aimed for the tweaking community in the KA7. So how does the 'board perform? Read on to find out our results!